Motorola Slvr L2 review (silver, AT&T)

Save for the lack of a camera--a smart move on Moto's part--the L2's respectable feature set doesn't differ greatly from that of its sibling, the L6. Although you don't get access to Motorola's Screen3 technology, the 500-contact phone book is adequate, and there's room in each entry for six phone numbers, an e-mail address, a postal address, and a birth date; the SIM card holds an additional 250 names. You can assign contacts to caller groups or assign them to any of 24 polyphonic ring tones. You can pair them with a picture as well, but you'll have to be resourceful, since there's no camera. Other features include a vibrate mode; MP3 ring-tone support; a calculator; a date book; an alarm clock; 10MB of flash memory; and text, multimedia, and instant messaging. On the business side, the L2 promises full Bluetooth, e-mail support, PC syncing, voice dialing, and a mini-USB port. You get a speakerphone, but you can't activate it until you make a call.

You can personalize the Motorola Slvr L2 with a variety of wallpaper, menu styles, color schemes, screensavers, and alert tones. If you want more ring tones or other options, you can purchase them from Cingular over the WAP 2.0 Web browser. The L2 supports video playback and has access to a multimedia album--odd additions to a phone without a camera. Java (J2ME) support is included, but only demo versions of three games (BlockBreaker Deluxe, Tetris, and Texas Hold 'em) are integrated.

We tested the quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900; GPRS) Motorola Slvr L2 world phone in San Francisco. Call quality was good overall. Volume was loud, and we could understand callers without any trouble. They reported the same conditions. Our only real complaints were that sound quality was a bit hollow at times and that callers had more trouble understanding us when using the otherwise acceptable speakerphone. We paired the L2 successfully with the Plantronics Explorer 320 Bluetooth headset but noticed more static when using it. As expected, Web browsing over GPRS speeds was slow. EDGE support would have been nice.

The Slvr L2 has a promised standby time of 14.4 days and, in our tests, met its rated talk time of 5.8 hours. According to FCC radiation tests, the L2 has a digital SAR rating of 1.54 watts per kilogram.

Overall, we like the feature set on the attractive Motorola Slvr L2, and the exclusion of the camera should fill a growing need for business-friendly devices that can still be allowed in defense plants, courtrooms, and government offices. We think it has a future, as it presents a solid lower-end option for Slvr lovers.